AllStars is ended - so what happened?

We're just finishing our final report to the funders of the main AllStars programme- the National Foundation for Youth Music. Without whom, none of this would have been possible.

 So - we wondered, what had we done? 
Lots and lots of music.... lots and lots of fun...lots and lots of learning. 
Plenty of new friends made along the way.
 

 The occasional party!

Here's some of the things we have reflected on : 

The programme was aspirational and to a degree experimental. 

We followed a community music model that was underpinned by therapeutic approaches, participation, and best practice in communication. We researched improvisation and free ensemble playing. We took musical risks and processed the outcomes.

We followed our programme plan carefully : it worked well. We extended our delivery thanks to local support. Increasing our pool of accessible instruments, we explored sensory approaches to music through offering ‘conventional’ instruments to people who had never had this opportunity before.

We brought people together who would never normally meet , allowing them to explore relationships through sound and structured musical activities that led to an increase in musicality, personal progression, and social interaction. 

We supplemented the education of a diverse range of gifted young musicians whose lives have been altered by the experience. 

We empowered individuals with complex learning needs, sensory impairment and autism, allowing them to participate playfully or with gravitas, leading others, and engaging on their own terms. We responded respectfully to all input and valued the unexpected. 

We worked diligently with our SEN volunteers and music leader, taking their lead and valuing their voice. – This at a time when ‘disabled music leadership’ is high on the agenda.

We shared knowledge with teachers, professionals and graduates. We gave advice on starting organisations, fundraising, and good practice; also, career guidance and mentoring support.

Our team have grown in expertise through co-working and skillshare. This is fully transferrable and affects all our practice.

We helped groups interact and find a group mind. We provided consulted opportunities for celebration and sharing, including a day of joyful partying at one of the most beautiful locations in the area.

We’ve seen music changes lives, takes us to places we wouldn’t otherwise go, and builds true communities of experience.

So - cheers everybody! Bye for now.

What's the 'perfect session'?

Last Thursday our Heart Beats group gathered in Cedars Hall for the last session of the AllStars project. The mood was upbeat because we are all looking forward to our festival, the Giant Jam, this Sunday.

AllStars has been a long and complex project, involving many different people across Somerset and beyond. The Heart Beats sessions in Wells have been the core, with 38 sessions since Easter 2015.
Every session has been surprising, fun and different, and last Thursday was no exception.

In reflection, we agreed that it felt like a 'perfect session'.
As often happens, a few folk couldn't be there, but we had a good mix in the room, musicians with disabilities, young music students from Wells Cathedral School and Bath Spa University.

Everyone was relaxed, at home, and full of affectionate chat. Laughter ran round the room.
People choose their instruments with confidence and played them well. Listening was focused, respectful, and there was a plenty of considerate space in the music.
The dynamics of the session grew slowly from playful interaction to upbeat dance groove. The music grew and became bigger than the sum of its parts.

Most importantly, after starting the pieces, the music leaders could step right back and just play as equals. Everyone participated on their own terms, coming together to create a harmonious whole. The music took over.

We parted as friends and in the hope that we will all play together again really soon.
Thanks everyone! A perfect session.

Integration, inclusion - powerful music

What a brilliant session today in Bridgwater - with students from the Jean Rees Centre and Chilton Trinity school coming together to improvise, co-create, and listen.

We can say this was an 'inclusive' session because there was a role for everyone, with open permission to play, listen and be creative. The atmosphere was respectful, playful, and trusting. No one was excluded.

We can also say it was an 'integrated' session because everyone there was bringing different skills to the room. J from Jean Rees taught the Chilton Trinity students some Makaton which they then incorporated in to some conducting. Everyone worked together to craft and perform small pieces of new music.

Some leadership skills emerging

We are running these sessions to explore what happens when you bring peer groups together from different settings, and to see how communication develops with music as the medium.

Well! today certainly had a big warm glow, and the room was full of life affirming sound.

the music of how we're feeling

At the Listening Lounge, we were thinking about how other people might be feeling..... how those people made us feel ...and even, just how we were feeling ourselves.

 Then we had a think about what kind of music would describe those feelings, and had a go at playing some of those feelings.

Playing 'calm' made us relaxed.... even if we weren't that calm at first.

Playing 'angry' was noisy but fun.

'Jealousy' was the most surprising : we all ended up laughing, sneaking a go on each others' instruments, and being playful.

What we discovered was that, as a group, playing music could change our mood. It wasn't just that we could represent a feeling through sound - it was more complex than that.
Because we were listening, and responding, and initiating,  together we could build pieces of music that could make us happier, calmer, or surprised.

Playing 'angry' didn't make us angry though. Actually - we felt better afterwards!

Later, Josh started to play the piano. Here's how it sounded. How would you describe this?

AllStars in 2017 : heading West

This is the final year of our AllStars project, which will end with a HUGE celebration this summer.
We've got plenty of great stuff to look forward to in the next few months.

This January we start a new mini-project that we're calling AllStars West.
The Jean Rees post-16 centre in Bridgwater is hosting a series of weekly music sessions where we will be playing live, interactive music with 11 students.
These sessions will build listening and social skills, as well as being fun, interactive and age appropriate.
We'll work with staff to help students move towards their Thrive targets.

Because AllStars brings mixed ability groups together to communicate through music, we will invite students from Chilton Trinity school, which shares a location with Jean Rees, to join the sessions too.

We expect to help build self esteem, confidence, listening skills, and social and emotional learning....because music is a great way to do this!

 

Active listening

Hear, absorb, process, react, respond. This is active listening - a communication skill - it's what we do when we're really engaged.

When you do this in improvised music sessions, it can become a transferable skill, so that listening in conversations - displaying empathy - becomes easier too.

By responding, we reflect and lead on. This is a fundamental of interactive communication.

Active listening can be hard work. Sometimes, in group sessions - often when things get loud! - as a music leader, you feel that people can become self absorbed, giving full attention to their instrument rather than other people, or maybe even not being fully present, in a 'zone' induced by rhythm and the physicality of playing. (Which is nice enough)

As a music leader you have to feel the balance of the sound, and make decisions as to whether the music is working or not. Sometimes just gaining attention, stopping for 4 beats and starting again will bring focus back. Sometimes it's ok to take the risk and let it find a level. ....And sometimes you might ask some people to stop for a while and others to continue playing, to allow a clearer listening space.

Tonight at the Listening Lounge we are going to explore invitations to play, inviting and respecting others. We shall play some listening games too - trying out ideas for the bigger group.

The Listening Lounge

This evening we are going to Cedars Hall for the first time.
Our first group there will be the Listening Lounge.
This is a closed group run by Alex and Jane. The Listening Lounge brings young people with and without additional needs together to explore 'what music does' more closely. There's a lot of chatting, playing, listening to music and each other.
In our explorations, we use instruments, recorded music, voices, words, technologies, art and all sorts of spontaneous responses to sound.

exploring sound, pattern and colour

Close your eyes ... and open your ears

We're continuing with our exploration of the sensory aspects of improvised music.

Yesterday, our group experimented with playing whilst having their eyes shut.

Alex asked us to 'pass a clap' around the group - first with eyes open, and then eyes shut.
The difference was striking! It took us about 3 goes before we began to recognise the unqiue sound of the person next to us and find our place in the sequence.

Later, Jane asked the group to improvise a piece quietly, eyes closed, with no prompts other than a significant sound for 'start' and 'stop'. People were told they could contribute as much or as little to the piece as much as they liked.
Together we created music that had a distinctive atmosphere, shape and sound. It felt complex but respectful.

In feedback, a lot of people said these things were their favourite part of the session.
Geoff said 'our two ears are connected to our brain.'
Without visual input, our sense of listening became much more important.
There is some research that states our brains divert activity away from our visual centres during listening tasks.

In our sessions, especially when there are so many people, we tend to use physical conducting  gestures to sculpt the music -  so this was different.
It is also a way of exploring what it is like to be part of the group for the group member who is visually impaired.
From a music leaders' point of view - it removed the need for active music leading. Perhaps this was possible, and successful, because we've all played together so much already?

As a group activity, it showed us how connected we are to each other, and how we can  feel more relaxed without the need to process visual information.
You might think you become less aware of others if you can't see them : what we felt was that we could listen more clearly, and because of this, become more aware of others.

2016

Plotting, planning - there's even a bit of doing, reviewing, improving.... the AllStars team are meeting this evening to get a feel for the New Year.

What's happening?
AllStars is in full swing ....
We've got training coming up : 'Joining In' on January 30th, which is run by us and is for associates, partners and other professionals ; and a CPD day especially for our team, with the wonderful Hugh Nankivell.

AllStars East is emerging from a seasonal break....
The Listening Lounge starts again next week, on the 14th.
Heart Beats music sessions start on January 21st.

AllStars West will see us back in Bridgwater exploring music education by encounter in our mixed sound sessions at Elmwood and Robert Blake College.

We'll be offering outreach sessions too, starting at Avalon School on February 12th.

If you'd like an outreach session to come to you, email us info@heartbeats.org.uk

We'll continue to ponder on what surprises us about music, and publish blog posts here and on the Youth Music network.
You can follow us on twitter too:  @HeartBeatsNews

Our funding from Youth Music will take us all through 2016, and on into 2017, when we plan something special to round up the AllStars adventure.

So - Happy New Year - and here's to a year of surprising and energizing sound.

The AllStars Listening Lounge

AllStars is a cluster of projects running across Somerset for two years.

All of these projects explore different aspects of integrated musical inclusion - based on our key principle of improvisation and 'music education by encounter.'

Alex and Jane are running the Listening Lounge. This is a small closed group that meets monthly. The group is equal :  a mixture of mainstream and SEN young musicians who have varied experiences of formal / non formal music education - and most possibly have very different expectations of the role of music in their future lives.

Within these sessions, Alex and Jane are exploring new approaches to the questions 'what is music for?' and 'what does music do for us?'
The Listening Lounge is a combination of community music practices and music mentoring, informed by therapeutic methodologies, in regular closed sessions with a dedicated group.


The group play, talk, listen and explore personal relationships with music.
The process will be informed by the group's narrative as it forms its identity.

We're waiting to see what measurable outcomes will look like. We think that being part of this group will be useful for the leaders and the group - that we can build on our sense of self worth, interpersonal skills, and tools for self expression.

Yesterday evening we gathered together to talk, laugh, reflect, improvise two pieces of music, listen to favourite tracks, and do some quiet, focused drawing to music.
Outside it was dark, windy and wintry, but inside the session it felt warm, relaxed, and safe.
Here are the drawings ...the music has just melted away, into the November night.

AllStars heading West

Tomorrow we are running the first of our regular AllStars West Sessions - we're off to Bridgwater where we will be the guests of Robert Blake Science College and Elmwood School.
We're working with the students on using music as a means of connecting, making friends, and communicating.
In the sessions tomorrow we'll have a good mix of students from both schools.
This will be interesting ...... it's the first of four sessions this academic year, so we'll be doing some groundwork together and establishing a groove.

Running an integrated group.

Our group exists for young people with learning disabilities, but it's a bit more complex than that....
Over the years, we have always had student placements at our music sessions. We provide support and opportunities for young musicians to experience working within a mixed ability setting.

Vicky

It's also brought us into contact with some brilliant instrumentalists and singers who really do bring a sparkle to group improvisations.
We feel that through offering this experience we've helped young people make higher education choices, and perhaps see music differently.

Gemma

Gemma, who was with us for a year, says ... 'I've ended up going to do recorder and violin at Birmingham Conservatoire instead of computer science'. We asked Gemma if she'd be interested in coming back for some sessions : 'This sounds amazing!  I'd love to come back and take part in the sessions!'
With the AllStars project, we felt that we'd like to open out this opportunity and move towards running a more integrated group - bringing together people from different backgrounds, who have had different opportunities, but have a common love of music.

At the taster session

Our partnerships with Wells Cathedral School continues to grow, and we also now have a partnership with the Elmwood and Penrose Federation of schools in Bridgwater.
This year Wells Cathedral School have stepped things up a bit by agreeing to host our integrated music mentoring sessions - "The Listening Lounge" - which begin in September.
They will help us identify A level music students to join the AllStars groups, and we'll be joined by one of their Graduate Music Assistants, who will be at the school studying for a CME (Certificate of Music Education).

Taster session warm up games

At our tasters this summer so far we met have Bella, Ellie, Esther, Molly and Laura. Laura is from Frome and is interested in a career in music therapy ; Molly is a signed songwriter.
Bella, Ellie and Esther are A level music students from Wells Cathedral School.They're all brilliant and we hope they will all join the group!
Our team of music leaders realise we will have a challenge to meet everyone's needs - but that's what we exist for : that's inclusion. We've said we're all stars in this context, so we need to discover how that works, and what that sounds like.
We all have so much to learn from each other, simply by being in a room where we can work and play together, listen and respond on equal terms.
What will be fascinating will be to observe the outcomes of these two years of 'music education by encounter' that we have planned for the AllStars project.

The AllStars mission statement

About the AllStars project....what we're aiming at..

"Music is a direct presentation of the feelingful dimension of experience"

 

Intentional sound can be a communication tool for everyone . The ability to improvise and respond is as powerful as good speaking and listening skills.

AllStars is about encounter-based music education. Beneficiaries are young people with special needs, who are in transition in education and from home to independent living.
We know they have a lot to say about themselves, and do this well through music.

We will bring people of all abilities together to play with this core team of 'experts by experience'. A cascaded training model will provide integrated, inclusive experiential learning opportunities. Peer interaction is the key.

We work with live, improvised music.
Improvising music together builds musical progression and communication confidence, regardless of 'ability' . We believe everyone is musical : we will radically challenge perceptions about music , enabling learning from the outlook and approaches of young people with SEN.

'Above all, music is a social art, where playing with and listening to others is the motivation, the experience and the learning process. This is music education by encounter.'

 

Ah, yes .... and there's the fun bit. too. Quite a lot of fun, in fact.